Projects Exclusion: Etche Youth To Protest Against NDDC

There are indications that a coalition of youth groups in Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State is mobilising for a peaceful protest to the head office of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in Port Harcourt over the omission of Etche in the 2017 project execution list of the commission.
The Tide gathered that high level mobilization of youths in the various communities has reached advanced stage.
National Co-ordinator, Etche Development Foundation, Prince Dan Mbachi, who confirmed this to The Tide, in Port Harcourt, said youths in Etche considered the exclusion of the area from the projects list for the year and would take necessary legal means to ensure that such denial was reversed.
Mbachi said already, petitions have gone to several quarters, including the National Assembly, calling for fairness, adding that the commission would no longer be allowed to toy with the development of Etche.
“One had expected NDDC to reverse the situation if it was an oversight, but the continued inaction of the commission gives the impression that it was a ploy against the People of the area”.
Mbachi explained that Etche is a major oil-producing area that produce huge revenue to the nation, but that the area has nothing to show in terms of federal presence.
“Coming now to exclude the area in the NDDC project list is something we cannot take.  We shall continue to mobilise and agitate until justice is done.
“We gave an ultimatum of two weeks for the commission to correct that dangerous omission after which, we shall stage a protest to the head office of the commission and to other higher quarters”, he said.
It would be recalled that list of projects was published by NDDC for execution this year did not include any project awarded for execution in Etche local government area.
This revelation which was made by a development agency sparked off chains of reactions by groups in Etche and beyond rejecting the exclusion of Etche from the commission’s project execution.